Old Age
by Elle-05
Summary: Old Age, Saul had discovered, was a time for reflection.


**Old Age**

Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. I am simply borrowing it all from that great movie "Ocean's 11."

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Old age, Saul had discovered, was a time for reflection.

At first he thought of his childhood, hours spent on pointless math problem or with his mother as she instilled in him the manners which no one seemed to care for these days. He thought of the time he and Tom had shared learning and perfecting so many different skills, many of which modern upgrades in security had made pointless.

However, almost two years ago his Gloria had died, and Saul gave up thinking about his past. Instead, he thought about the people who meant something to him. His family hadn't been more than a blood group to him in years, and he had no reason to change that now. Instead he thought of Tom, who had been his brother in all ways but blood before disappearing over thirty years previously, of Elizabeth, his first great love, and of course, his Gloria.

Of all his older friends, Reuben, was the only one he ever saw. The others having either passed away, or simply lost contact. As with many of the others, Saul met Reuben on a job. It was a jewellery store robbery, the mechanics of which were so out of date the story could now only be told as a joke. Saul had just started branching out on his own, and Reuben was trying to build contacts so that when he finally did open his own casino, he'd be a step ahead of his competition. The two had not started out as friends, they were hardly even acquaintances, but circumstances made them colleagues and eventually over time they had learnt to be friends.

But far too often, Saul thought to himself that people such as Reuben, and himself, were in the past. That was when he thought of the kids. There was never time to have any himself, of course, but there were those he'd taken under his wing. Trained, looked after and watched as they found their feet learning to take care of themselves, he imagined that was what fatherhood must be like.

Most people would tell you that Rusty was the only thief Saul ever trained, but there were others, Rusty was simply the only one that made it. Saul met Rusty when the younger man was in his early twenties. As a kid he had been good, not great, but he was motivated to learn, and he had potential.

It wasn't until Saul took Rusty to a job, on Bobby Caldwell's recommendation, that he met Danny. Then he got great. Even in the beginning the two complimented each other. Rusty had always been good with plans, seeing what needed to be done and doing it. Danny got the ideas. As far as Saul could tell, Danny's biggest problem was that he was cocky, and not always realistic. For the most part Rusty could pull him back and it wasn't until Danny married Tess, eventually leading to their huge fight that Danny's arrogance got out of hand. Everyone told Danny it was a bad idea, that he could not move the head-masks, but he tried, and got sentenced.

Everything seemed to slow down while Danny was in jail. It was during this time of silence that Saul's age began to catch up with him. He retired as much as one could given his profession, and settled down with Gloria watching dog racing. Saul had worried about Rusty a lot during that time. The thief did a few small jobs with Frank and Basher and then packed it in for a while trying to teach some kids to play crabs or something of the sort.

Then came Vegas.

It was impossible to think of any of the guys involved without automatically going to that job. It was defining. In a lot of ways Vegas had been Saul's last real job, any of those he chose to assist in afterwards were simply attempts to not let the team down. It had been a long and hectic two weeks. Danny, trying to win Tess back while he and Rusty ran however many cons at once. Reuben, sulking around upset by the loss of his casino, pulling himself together only long enough to occasionally yell at the twins. However, the one thing that really set Vegas apart was meeting Linus Caldwell.

The kid was young, inexperienced, naive, had no place on a job like that, and he was excellent. He made the same mistakes anyone would expect a rookie to make, but he also acted and did pulls like a pro. Saul had liked the kid. He was surprisingly kind and somehow seemed to have all of the manners that Saul had believed were outdated.

Looking at the kid now, it was hard to imagine that Saul had not even known him for ten years. Linus was not yet thirty and already recognised as the best thief on the planet by all but a few people who would give Danny the title. He was no longer naive, innocent, or inexperienced. He was closed off, calculative and cold to all but those few people he had known from before. The change had not come suddenly, they had all seen it happening but it came about so simply.

They were doing a job, nothing out of the ordinary, Saul wasn't even really involved. Danny, Rusty and Linus were all playing their various parts as Saul and Livingston watched. Linus was speaking to the curator of the museum, assuring her that what they were doing was for the greater good when she turned to him and asked _"do you promise?"_ The kid froze. Never before, or after, that incident could Saul remember the kid freezing, but he stood there staring at her for just a moment before Livingston went frantic telling him to say something. The kid broke out of it, promised, and finished the job perfectly, as always, but something changed. For the rest of the day the kid had been quiet and withdrawn, he left to be on his own the moment he could. Saul would have loved to know what went through the kid's mind that night, but by the next day he seemed fine.

Saul hadn't even noticed anything out of the ordinary until Danny came to speak to him about it. He was worried, said the kid hadn't been himself. It was during the next and last job Saul pulled, with the eleven of them, that he really saw the difference. The changes were subtle. Around people he knew the kid was almost himself, it was only around everyone else he became closed off. He could still act as innocent as he always had, but those who had known him could see the lie in the back of his eyes. He stopped asking Danny questions the way he used to, and he got more independent branching out on his own whilst becoming more closed off, never calling people and only speaking to those who called him. As far as career advancing moves went it was the best thing that could have happened, however Saul worried about the personal ramifications for both the kid, and those around who cared about him.

Danny would never have any children, and a part of Saul blamed the kid for that. There was a time that Danny and Tess thought about it, but the worry and confusion Danny had felt for Linus seemed to have stopped that from becoming a reality.

Rusty had already been at least half in love with the kid by the time they left Vegas. He blew off Isabelle for him, and whilst Saul was glad they had each other at least, he knew it was not what either wanted any more. Rusty wanted that naive twit he met in Vegas, and god only knew what Linus really wanted.

Linus was just broken. Whether by a lack of faith in others, himself, or simply the reality of the world, it came at him too fast and he wasn't ready.

Saul was dying now, he had been brought into the hospital two days ago and had hardly left his bed since. Rusty and Danny had arrived only hours after he was admitted, Linus came the next day. He wished the kid hadn't come, really he wished the kid had never even come to Vegas.

Because the most important thing to Saul were the kid's he spent over twenty years with, training and watching, like they were his own, he told them to have families, children, a life outside of crime, and for while they had listened to him. But in less than ten years, in what had hardly been five years, the kid managed to tear everything he had done for them apart.

And for that he hated him.

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Please tell me what you think.

After however long I finally have what I think is a good plot for my sequel to 'The Ocean's Job' and I hope to have the first chapter up really soon.


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